Here's a photo of the Tsujita Tokyo soy sauce ramen. I don't have a lot of familiarity with the varieties of Japanese ramen (though my favorite local places are Ramen Halu, Ramen Tenma, and Misoya Ramen) and have never been to Toyko.

This ramen seemed OK, but I prefer the local places. The meat was perfectly selected -- each slice half fat, half meat. Very strong soy sauce flavor (while I was there a woman came up to criticize the workers in Japanese -- though I caught an English phrase: "you use too much, too salty"). I didn't find it too salty for soy sauce ramen, but don't normally order this style. The noodles were slightly gummy.

The Tsujita publicity dude out front warned that it was not the style they serve at their west LA location (I was confirming they were part of that chain).

The other photo is of the cooking area inside the popup kitchen area. The stock and water pots are directly behind the fellow completing the ramen. The guy in the far back is handling the noodles.

I did not go check out the black kimichi ramen -that's over at Santouka. The Tsujita ramen is $9.50 a bowl, $14.50 extra chashu.

Thanks for the report, I would have loved to try Tsujita's ramen. I noticed the demonstration kitchen in the front of Mitsuwa when I stopped by on Monday. I hope we can look forward to more visiting ramen-ya's.

One difference was that the seasoned soft-yolked egg was a whole egg rather than just a half. Also, the nori was toasted and not completely soggy. So that’s somewhat of an improvement on the topping front. The black garlic oil contributed an extra note of complexity. But for me, this was not a striking enough change in the flavor to make a special trip. I’d be equally satisfied with the regular kimchi ramen.http://www.flickr.com/photos/melaniew...

However, on the minus side, the noodles had an odd almost brittle texture. Never this branch’s strongpoint, the yellowish noodles had an initial gummy bite then broke apart. They almost seemed like they were parcooked and then finished for service. Santouka drops down to #4 in the rankings.